


Hit Me With Your Best Shot

by digitalAlchemist



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Injury, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, M/M, Multi, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 08:04:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6276277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalAlchemist/pseuds/digitalAlchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a terrible car crash lands Axel in the hospital, he has to deal with the aftermath of major surgery. But when he's assigned a carer in the form of a cute blonde called Roxas, his days start to get a little better. For a little while, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hit Me With Your Best Shot

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE NOTE: This fic is going to feature depictions of: drug usage and eventual abuse, violence, sex and potentially some non-con situations later on down the line. 
> 
> I've spent some time researching morphine addiction/withdrawals and such, so hopefully most of this will be factually accurate but I apologise if that turns out to not be the case. This is an idea I've had in my head for at least 5 years now, from right when I started writing fanfic for the first time. It's going to be gritty and really angsty at times, but I'm determined to make this one of my best pieces of writing!
> 
> Hope you all enjoy it.

The ECG machine beeped somewhere off to his right-hand side, a rhythmic _pip-pip-pip_ piercing the silence of the hospital room. He was alone, and the lights were dimmed - a dull yellow glow filled the room. His vision blurred as sleep began to take over again, the medication pumping through his system making him drowsy.

Glancing to his left, he grimaced at the number of tubes jabbing into his arm, rolling his eyes across the various IV drips and their contents, lined up next to the bed like some fucked up funeral procession. He should’ve died in that crash - 120 mph of metal and machinery smashing into the side of his car doesn’t really spell out a happy ending. They constantly reminded him he was lucky to be alive, much to his chagrin; he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the memory of the incident still fresh in the front of his mind.

He vividly remembered the sound of brakes screeching, the screams of the passers-by waiting at the crossing; the metallic taste of blood as it filled his mouth and sprayed across the dashboard; the pain that jolted through him as the metal and glass scraped across his body, embedding itself in his skin - with a shudder and a whince, he pulled himself back into the room, his breathing slowly returning to a normal level and his heartbeat calming down again, the machine beside him following his relaxation. He sighed, leaning back into his pillows and staring at the ceiling.

“Mr Queensbury?”

He looked towards the door to see a nurse standing there, fingers still on the handle; he hadn’t even heard the click of the latch.

“Can I come in?”

“Y-Yeah…” He coughed quietly, throat a lot drier than he remembered it being.

She stepped across the threshold, gently shutting the door closed behind her and switching the sign to ‘Engaged’. She then came to the side of the bed, pulling a small stool out from under a table and sitting down on it.

“Axel Queensbury, correct?” He nodded. “I’m Nurse Makioka, and I’ll be in charge of your aftercare following your surgery.” She flicked a sheet over the top of her clipboard. “How’re you feeling since you woke up?”

“A little tired, still… To be honest, I can’t really feel anything. It just feels like I’m floating.” Axel could feel how cracked his lips were as he talked.

The nurse offered him a cup of water with a straw, and he gratefully sucked down the contents. “Well, morphine does have that effect I’m afraid. It’s a lot better than the alternative, let me tell you.”

He took another look at the nurse as she jotted down notes; her hair was a deep shade of blue, as far as he could tell in the light. Her eyes seemed to be a similar colour, but the thick rim of her glasses blocked his view of them.

“I need to check your stitches now, so I’ll have to lift your gown. Will that be okay?” She looked at him over the top of her glasses, pen stopping still in its movements.

“A-Absolutely, yeah.” Axel looked away, instead staring at his array of liquid medication - now noticing that one of the bags was labelled ‘Intravenous morphine solution’. The nurse shifted to his left hand side, carefully avoiding the snakes of tubes as she lifted his hospital attire; he knew he was wearing underwear, so it wasn’t exactly a big problem - she was there to do her job, nothing more. For the first time since the surgery, he got to look at the wounds that he’d managed to survive.

His chest was covered in small lacerations, and they had started to heal by themselves, but the cut that the nurse was interested in spanned his entire left pectoral, stretching from the centre of his sternum and diagonally down underneath his nipple. It was carefully held together by a maze of stitches, and looked to be a clean suture; Axel had no idea, he just watched medical dramas on TV occasionally.

“Looks like this one’s holding out really well.” The nurse carefully pulled away the blood-soaked dressing and started to reapply another. “The antiseptic will sting a little, but I don’t think you’d be able to feel it if you tried.” She threw a small smile in his direction, carefully dabbing the dried crimson away before covering the stitches in a thin blue gel. “I’ll need to leave these new dressings on overnight, but they should be fine.”

Axel nodded again, fascinated by watching her work. She finished on his chest and moved down to his leg, again peeling away the old dressing.

“And you’ll be pleased to know your leg looks good too. They should both heal up nicely.” The nurse repeated the re-dressing on his leg, pulling the hospital gown back over his body. “Alright, that’s your dressings changed over. I’ll be back in the morning to have another check, make sure they’ve not split or started weeping overnight.” She stood up and met his gaze. “Are you feeling hungry at all?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you though.” Axel smiled.

She returned the gesture, moving back to his right side and replacing the stool under the table. “Sleep well then, Mr. Queensbury. See you tomorrow.” She grabbed her clipboard and left, closing the door as gently as before.

Axel sighed again, pressing his head back into the pillows once more. When he closed his eyes, he couldn’t fight off the drowsiness any longer and fell asleep; his dreams rapidly became nightmares, his slumber interrupted multiple times.

* * *

He was awoken by the smell of re-cooked bacon; cracking one eye open slowly, he spotted the blue hair of Nurse Makioka at the foot of his bed, scribbling something on her clipboard. There was a tray laid out over his stomach; his breakfast, consisting of two slices of bacon on what he assumed was toast, a bowl of cereal and a small bottle of water - not exactly a filling meal, but he couldn’t really expect gourmet dining from a hospital.

“Ah, you’re awake.” The nurse looked up at him from her notes. “Did you sleep okay?”

Axel chewed on his lip. “Not really, no… I couldn’t settle.”

“Nightmares?” He nodded. “Quite common, honestly. Especially after the kind of accident that you had.”

“How… How bad was it?”

“Do you really want to know?” Axel swallowed hard, nodding slowly. “The other guy didn’t make it; he was crushed by the impact. You very nearly bled out after you lost consciousness.” She checked the notes on her clipboard. “We thought you were dead at first; completely unresponsive, and your breathing had stopped.”

Axel’s face had paled slightly, his hands gripping the thin covers of his hospital bed tightly. “What happened?”

“The ambulance medics managed to resuscitate you, but apparently only just.” She glanced at the rack of IV drips to his left. “You’ve gone through so many bags of blood already - the surgeons almost gave up on you, y’know. I’ve seen people come out of car crashes looking like they had a bad day with a shredder, but…” The nurse looked at him again. “You were something special. But, they didn’t let you go until you were stable.”

“And here I am…” He looked down at his arms, covered in small stitches and scars. “Alive. Somehow.”

“Thank whatever deity was looking down on you last night, you’re here.” She smiled at him. “You can call me Aqua, by the way. Most patients here prefer my first name - Nurse Makioka is a bit of a mouthful at the best of times.”

“Aqua… Thank you, for your help.” He smiled at her, carefully pulling the tray of food closer to him.

“Oh it’s no bother; it’s always so good to see people bounce back from the worst of strifes. Really makes you marvel at how amazing the human body can be under such stress.” She returned his smile. “I’ll leave you to your breakfast, anyway. There’s a couple of morning newspapers on your bedside table, should you wish to read them.” Hooking the clipboard on the end of his bed, Aqua clicked her pen and slid it into her top pocket. “I’ll be back in about an hour to check your medication.”

He nodded, his mouth currently full of bacon and bread. Offering a thumbs-up to Aqua, she nodded and left the room, leaving him to enjoy his food. Axel grabbed one of the newspapers and pulled it open, taking his time to digest the day’s news until the nurse returned to check on him.

* * *

“Alright Axel, you’re all sorted.” Aqua finished taping the medication tubes to his arm. “You might be on this stuff for the next few weeks or so, I’m afraid. Your injuries are healing well, but they’ll still hurt like hell without the pain relief.” She pointed to a small button in her hand. “The machine will automatically dispense medication every 4 hours, but if you feel that you need another shot sooner, you can press this button and it will give you a smaller dose immediately.” Aqua passed it to him, and he rolled it through his fingers. “If you manually take a dose, the machine won’t let you do it again for another eight hours. So keep that in mind before you try and drug yourself into a coma.”

Axel snorted, chuckling. “Alright, noted. I’m sure I’ll be fine though.” He laid the button down next to him, folding up the newspaper on his lap.

Aqua smiled, pulling a small plastic box off the trolley she brought in with her. “Here’s your phone, by the way. We managed to rescue it from your car. It’s a little worse for wear, but as far as we can tell it still works.”

He gasped quietly, taking the device from her and checking it over. “Wow, barely a scratch on it…” He spotted a cable in the corner of his vision; Aqua was holding it out to him.

“It’s out of battery at the moment, but we also found your charging cable so you should be able to keep using it while you’re here in hospital.”

“Thanks.” He plugged it in, smiling when the soothing glow of the light blue startup screen covered his hand. The empty battery flashed an angry red before slowly beginning to fill up; Axel put the phone down on the table, locking the screen and letting it recharge. “Home comforts and all that. I don’t really have much of an excuse to use it, but thank you for returning it to me.”

“Oh, is that so?” Aqua asked him as she rearranged used bags of blood and medicine into another box on the trolley, cleaning up her equipment and used needles.

“I’ve been a bit of a recluse the past few years, unfortunately. I was never very good at keeping in contact with people. I used to know quite a few friends, from way back in school. But our lives got ahead of us, and we slowly stopped messaging each other or meeting up.” He sighed, an almost wistful look in his eyes as he continued to stare at his phone. “At least it’ll be quiet for you when you need to come and check on me. Nobody even knows I’m in here, I don’t think.”

“Well… if that’s how you think about it, then I can’t really argue with you.” She wheeled the trolley into the middle of the room. “But I’m sure at least one of them’s wondering how you’re doing these days.” There was a knock, startling them both. “Oh! Speaking of other people.” Aqua pushed the trolley to the side and walked towards the door. “There’s somebody you need to meet.”

She opened the door to let the new visitor in. He stepped inside, nodding politely at Aqua and saying hello, before coming into the room and standing beside Axel’s bed. “Hey there.”

“H-Hey…” Axel was a little confused, but noticed Aqua was quickly coming back to stand next to him.

“Axel, I’d like you to meet Roxas.” She gestured to the boy next to her - who Axel noticed had incredibly well styled golden blonde hair, a reasonable amount of height to him, and the most gorgeous blue eyes he’d ever seen in his life. “He’ll be your carer for the next few months, until you’re completely healed. He’ll be making sure you’re able to get your medication prescriptions, as well as any food or other necessities you’ll need whilst you’re house-bound with your injuries.”

“Huh… they’re that bad?”

“Unfortunately so. We also assign a carer to patients like you, who’ve had a lot of major surgery, not only to make sure they can live properly whilst recovering but to ensure that they’re able to take their medication properly and in a safe way.”

“So basically he’s making sure I don’t knock myself out on morphine?”

“That’s the basic idea, yes.” Roxas smiled at him, stretching out his hand and offering it to Axel. “Nice to meet you, Axel.”

He returned the gesture, smiling back. “He’s cute and looks like he knows what he’s doing - I’ll take him.”

**Author's Note:**

> A short chapter, but I wanted to introduce the main premise in a relatively easy snippet - I'm hoping to at least double this chapter's length for future ones, maybe even triple. Hopefully my ideas and spare time will allow for that.


End file.
